


remaster

by lupinely (orphan_account)



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, anyway ep 25 is a hack job. here's what rly happened, background rem/misa. theyre lesbians, i dont know why i did this in 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lupinely
Summary: "Rather than murder me to satisfy Light, thereby tying Misa forever to Light and whatever new plans he may concoct for her in the future, help me instead. I can guarantee that no matter what Light does, he will never be able to hurt Misa again.”“How can you ensure such a thing?”“Because,” L says, “he will be with me.”(L makes a deal with Rem instead, and lives.)





	

 

 

 

“Rem,” L says to get her attention. He is sitting in his usual way in his usual chair in his usual place in front of a computer screen at the task force headquarters. On the desk in front of him lies the Death Note: the answer to all the questions that have plagued him over the last few years and yet also the truth that he cannot quite believe even while reality—while a shinigami—stares him in the face. He never thought of himself as someone who would have trouble believing an obvious fact, but facts as he knew them no longer seem to resemble the facts he now faces.

“Yes?” says Rem. She stands behind his chair, looking down at him and the Death Note. L does not turn to face her. Rem’s facial expressions never change, and she rarely performs any motion or movement that is not expressly necessary. L will not be able to read the truth in her eyes even if he looks. They are alone for now, as it is late in the night and nearly everyone else is asleep. L is not sure where Light is—something that he has not had to worry about for a long time, but now with the weight of the handcuff around his wrist gone, he worries once more. Intensely, even: despite all the evidence that Light has been cleared.

But L knows the difference between evidence and fact, evidence and truth. That much has not changed, no matter what unreality he has witnessed in the past several days.

“You are in love with Misa.” L does not phrase it quite as a question, but it still remains one, for he cannot be certain. Do shinigami feel love? Do they feel anything? “Isn’t that right?”

Rem is silent for a long time. Whether or not she tells him the truth, Rem has always provided an answer to any question that L has asked. So he waits her out.

Finally: “A shinigami’s emotions are not comparable to a human’s. I do not feel anything that you would be able to understand.”

Fair enough. “Yet you feel something for her?” It is the only explanation that L can come up with to explain Rem’s behavior, if she is in fact working with Light to accomplish—well, accomplish _what_ is the question, isn’t it? A shinigami is not beholden to the human owner of the Death Note; in fact, L is not even precisely sure who currently possesses the Death Note on the table in front of him.

He has a hunch, though. Sometimes a hunch is just a hunch, and it can’t be proven no matter what you do; yet it can still, despite that, be the truth.

After another long moment’s silence, Rem says, “Yes.” She sounds defensive, slightly combative. As if she is waiting to see what L says next and to judge whether or not she needs to move against him—move against him in order to protect Misa.

“Light does not know my true name. Yet I can feel the threat that this book holds for me, or another one like it.” L puts his hand on the Death Note’s cover; it is cold to the touch, like ice. No one else has mentioned feeling anything like that from the book. L does not know why he feels it yet no one else can. “But you do.”

“I know the name of every human on earth,” Rem says. “That does not mean I would give it to Light Yagami. I do not serve the purposes of any human.”

“Not without getting anything in return, at least.” L opens the Death Note and flips through its pages, skimming the hundreds—the _thousands_ —of names written there in that all too familiar scrawl. Did Light really think L would not recognize his handwriting? The way the lettering changes partway through the book, all the way up through Higuchi’s death?

Why does Light think L was so foolish? Arrogance, perhaps? He certainly has enough of that in spades. But maybe it is because it does not matter now, that L knows, knows even though he cannot prove any of this: because soon enough L will be dead, and all that knowledge, that certainty, will die with him. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Light is going to have him killed.

And he is not even going to be brave enough to do it himself. To write L’s name in his own hand. To put the knife, you might say, to L’s metaphorical throat.

Had there been any truth to Light’s behavior, his words, his actions when the two of them were hunting down Higuchi for these many past months? But L does not want to think about that now. He has enough problems trying to interpret and understand people’s behaviors without having to account for Light’s very loose interpretation of truth in his calculations.

(From the moment you were born, has there ever been a point in your life when you’ve told the truth?

The look on Light’s face, even to L, who often cannot read faces, said it all.

Light is not used to being challenged like that: that’s the first thing L had learned about him. Direct, open confrontation—a flagrant challenge of Light’s integrity, his fabricated persona? Even if he came up with an excuse for it after the fact, in the split-second moment of the challenge his face reveals the truth, and had ever since L had first walked up to him and told him, “I am L.”)

“But if you were to get something in return,” L says to Rem, “something, say, that you very much wanted—that you wanted more than anything, for whatever reasons you might use to explain that desire, love or some other shinigami emotion that I cannot claim to understand—then, perhaps, you might do something you otherwise would never do. Like write the name of the person Light wants dead the most.”

Rem’s silence again, before her grudging response. She never lies—that is something that L likes about shinigami so far. They obfuscate the truth, but never conceal it outright. “I might. Perhaps any shinigami might.”

L takes a strawberry out of the bowl in front of him, sitting an inch to the left of the Death Note, and eats it. “Perhaps,” he agrees. “And perhaps, if someone told you that doing such a thing would not ensure that what you desperately wanted would come to pass—”

Rem shifts, the most blatant expression of discomfort that L has ever seen from her. He smiles. “Then perhaps you might be willing to do something for me, instead—who can ensure that what you want remains safe.”

“Speak plainly, mortal,” Rem says. Her voice is dark now with annoyance—not metaphorically dark, but _literally_ dark; the room swells with it and fills with a terrible angry heaviness, but L does not mind. He likes the dark.

“Light will not keep Misa safe.” L selects another strawberry, inspects it, and eats it. “And even if he does, he will not make her truly happy. He does not love her. He has said as such to me many times. Several of which I have recorded, if you would like verification. But surely you know this anyway without such proof. So you must think that Misa may still find happiness so long as she believes that Light does love her. But what kind of happiness is that? A false happiness at the expense of the real, enduring happiness that Misa might find if she were set free from Light’s cruelty, his ease at manipulating and subjugating other people for his own ends. Rather than murder me to satisfy Light, thereby tying Misa forever to Light and whatever new plans he may concoct for her in the future, help me instead. I can guarantee that no matter what Light does, he will never be able to hurt Misa again.”

“How can you ensure such a thing?”

“Because,” L says, choosing between two more strawberries, “he will be with me.”

Rem makes an unnatural, gravelly sound. It takes longer than a moment for L to realize that she is laughing. “Oh, silly human,” she says with great amusement. She turns his own question against him. “You are in love with Light. Isn’t that right?”

L hesitates. In love with someone capable of mass murder? It’s not something that he wants to accept about himself, and it feels much more complicated than that. Or at least he hopes that it does. “It’s not anything that you would be able to understand.”

Rem laughs again. “Yes,” she says, “I do think that is true.”

L does not bother to ask what she means by that. “What I need—” he holds up one finger “—is, of course, for you to not kill me.” He puts up a second. “Then you must convince Misa that Light does not love her and that she needs to escape from him, because he will kill her if—or when—it becomes convenient for him to do so. This will be the hardest part, for I am not sure how to make Misa believe any of that. But you must find a way, and I think only you can. Then,” and he puts up a third finger, “you must take Misa far away from here to someplace where she will be safe. Out of the country, preferably. I will do the rest to make sure that Light never looks for her and that he never is able to hurt her again.”

“How can I trust you on any of this?”

“Because I will let Misa keep her Death Note. I assume that she must have one if she really is the Second Kira. But I suspect that she killed out of a desire different from Light’s, a desire that will fade if she no longer yearns for Light’s approval. I will let her keep the Death Note as a final measure to ensure her own safety, but you must promise me that she will not use the notebook to kill anyone other than myself or Light.”

Rem says nothing, still listening, but L thinks his argument is persuasive and Rem is, if nothing else, quite practical.

“Finally,” L puts up a fourth finger, “you must tell me how to transfer ownership of this Death Note from Light to myself.”

Rem shakes her head. “You ask many things of me, human.”

“I know,” L says. “If there is anything that you would ask of me in return, and I find it reasonable, I will do it for you. I know it must be hard for you to trust me—to trust any human—but hopefully you understand that I bear Misa no ill will, especially after what I put her through” —a pang of regret, though short-lived— “and that I would be satisfied to know that she will never murder again, with you as her caretaker. Can you believe that?”

Rem is still shaking her head, but it seems more a remnant of her prior motion, slow to stop, ponderous as all shinigami movement is, rather than a continued negation of L’s words. “I can believe that, human,” she says. “And I can accept these terms as you have proposed them. But know that if you do not keep your promise—that if Light comes after Misa, and hurts her—I will kill you first, then him.”

L nods. “I understand.”

Rem shakes her wings a little bit, as birds do when they get water on them. “As to your final request,” she says slowly, “you may find it hard to achieve. Only the owner of a Death Note can relinquish ownership to someone else, and he must do so willingly in order for that ownership to successfully pass on. And then he will forget everything of the Death Note, including his prior part in using it.”

L blinks. He had suspected this, but not known for certain. Had Light truly forgotten, then, when the Death Note was with Higuchi—can any of his actions in those longs months be considered, perhaps, genuine...?

“Do with this information as you will. But know this as well, L.” It is strange to hear his name in Rem’s voice, but pleasant, too; L does not fully understand the honor code of a shinigami, but he knows at least that Rem will hold to it unto, and perhaps beyond, death. “The rules written in the back of that Death Note are not true; they are fabrications of Light’s. If you cannot make Light give up the Death Note, you can destroy it instead. I do not know what this will do to the shinigami who is bound to that Death Note—nor do I particularly care. But it can be done. But Light’s memories of it will not be erased along with the passing of the Death Note. Do with this information as you see fit.”

And then, strangely, she bows to L. L, blinking in wonder, gets unsteadily to his feet and makes the same gesture in return.

“Go well, L,” Rem says, and she flaps her wings twice and is gone.

 

-

 

What can you say to a girl infatuated with someone awful, someone uncaring and dismissive, that will convince her that she will be better off without him?

This is a problem that Rem has never encountered before. In the shinigami realm, shinigami do not become infatuated with one another. Time moves differently in that realm—very slowly—and so barely anything tends to happen there, but emotions run differently still, and many of the ones that Rem has witnessed here on Earth—jealousy, rage, lust, despair, jubiliation—have no counterparts where she is from. The emotion with which Rem is the most familiar is apathy, which is why her own concern for Misa bewilders her so; she has never felt anything this intense, this urgent, in her long, long existence. All she knows for certain is that she will do anything to keep Misa safe and happy. And while Light’s offer had some validity, there is more benefit to L’s proposal.

And whether L keeps his word or not, Misa will have the Death Note. And with Rem’s advice—not Light’s—that will be enough to keep her safe.

If only Rem can convince her of this.

Misa is at her apartment; she has complained about its distance from the task force headquarters many times since she has been freed, citing that as the reason that Light never comes to see her here. But Rem knows better. She glides through the walls of the apartment into Misa’s room, where Misa is lying on her stomach on her bed, her feet up behind her, as she reads a magazine.

Misa does not startle when she notices that Rem has appeared. Instead she cries out, “Rem!” and gets up and throws her arms around the shinigami, hugging her tightly.

Humans simply do not greet shinigami this way. Or at least not any other human that Rem has ever encountered. Even Light is not truly comfortable around Rem or Ryuk, despite his posturing. But Misa—there is no affect there, no lie. She is entirely too trusting; but to have her trust, her faith, warms what’s left of Rem’s cold devolved shinigami heart.

“Misa,” Rem says. She puts her hands on Misa’s shoulders—gently, for she knows her clawed hands might hurt someone as delicate as Misa—and sits her back on the bed.

Misa looks up at her. “Is something wrong? Is Light all right? Did Light send you?”

Rem closes her eyes briefly. “Light did not send me,” she says, and when Misa still looks worried, “I am sure that he is fine.” Though Rem does not particularly care either way if he is. Light is L’s problem, now. “Do you have your Death Note with you?”

“No,” Misa says. “I buried it again like Light told me to.”

“I see.” Rem considers. “We will retrieve it then, later.”

Misa frowns. “But Light told me to leave it there.”

“I know.” Rem is not sure how to do this. She suddenly worries that she will not be able to. All she can decide to do is to be blunt, even though it will hurt. “Misa, Light does not love you.”

Misa’s eyes widen. But then she does something that Rem does not expect; rather than argue, or ignore what Rem has said, or deny it completely, Misa bursts into tears and buries her face on Rem’s shoulder.

“How can you say that?” she asks, sobbing.

Rem feels something she does not have words for—a sharp pain in her chest, and in her heart. “I only say the truth, Misa,” she says as gently as she can, which is not very gently. “You do not deserve to be stuck with a person who lies about caring for you when really they do not. Light has been using you all this time—manipulating your feelings for him! I didn’t want to hurt you and tell you this. I thought being with Light would make you happy…but it hasn’t made you happy, Misa. And it is never going to, because he is never going to be the person you want him to be.”

Misa, still crying, says nothing. She just sobs and clings to Rem, and Rem, motionless, is not sure what to do, nor what else to say at this point. She had expected Misa to rage at her, not weep.

After a long time, Misa pulls away and wipes her face on her sleeve. “I didn’t want to hear anyone else say it,” she says. “Because that would make it real. Rem, what am I going to do?”

Rem looks down at her. “You mean you knew?”

“I don’t know,” Misa says. Her makeup is running, and she sniffles a little. “I mean, you can always _tell_ , sort of, whether someone really does or does not love you.... I just thought that if I kept doing what he wanted—kept trying to make him happy, that one day, maybe...he would finally love me.”

“Misa,” Rem says; “I don’t know very much about love. But even I know that you should never have to hurt yourself like that, over and over, to try and get someone to love you.”

Misa’s smile is small and watery.

“Anyone should be grateful to love you,” Rem says. “You are…quite easy to love. I do not know how Light does not see it.”

“Oh, Rem!” Misa says, and throws her arms around Rem again. Uncomfortably, Rem thinks— _you can always_ tell, _sort of, whether someone really does or does not love you...._

Rem wonders whether Misa can tell, yet.

“But what am I going to do?” Misa finally says when she pulls away from Rem again. “Light knows my name—he won’t just let me out of his control if I know who he really is, that he’s Kira!”

“I’ve got it all figured out, Misa,” Rem says. “But you have to tell me if you agree with the decision I’ve made. I want it to be your decision, not mine.”

Misa nods fiercely. “Tell me, Rem!”

Rem explains the deal she made with L that will let Misa and Rem escape and leave Light, powerless—or at least unable to kill Misa—with L. Misa listens intently, her eyes narrowing as Rem goes on.

“Ryuzaki suggested all of that to you?” she asks when Rem is finished. Rem nods.

“I really did misjudge him when we first met.” Misa looks a little distraught. “Now he’s doing all this to save me….”

“He did keep you in prison for nearly two months,” Rem points out.

The expression on Misa’s face clears. “Oh yeah. I guess he owes me one, even though I am the Second Kira.”

“But you don’t have to be, anymore," Rem says.

Misa smiles, bright and happy, her mascara and eyeliner still streaked down her face. “Thanks to you, Rem,” she says, and she kisses Rem on the cheek.

 

-

 

L is alone in the main room of the task force headquarters—as usual, at this time of night—when the message appears on the computer screen in front of him.

REM AND I HAVE LEFT THE COUNTRY. I ALWAYS WANTED TO TRAVEL MORE!!! THANK YOU RYUZAKI. ♥ ♥ ♥ XOXO

The message blinks on the screen for a moment, then disappears, instantly deleting itself. L smiles, just slightly.

“Go well, Misa Amane,” he says, and presses the button to turn off the computer’s monitor. The room is flooded with sudden darkness.

Now all that is left to deal with is Light. L thinks he has an idea for how to handle that.

 

-

 

“Ryuzaki?” There is the sound of the door opening, and Light’s footsteps. “Matsuda? Dad? I’ve brought coffee for everyone—well, hot chocolate for Ryuzaki, but—”

Light has made it barely two steps into the room when L pounces on him. The tray of coffee and hot chocolate goes flying, and L and Light fall to the floor in a desperate and frenzied scramble. “What the hell?” Light says, writhing to get out of L’s grip, but L, with the advantage of surprise, is able to overpower him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He briefly regains the upper hand and L momentarily fears what will happen if Light escapes now. L doesn’t see it happen, but Light’s fist connects with L’s nose and L reels backwards, semi-blinded, before remembering his purpose and thrusting his elbow into Light’s throat. Light collapses back to the floor, choking, and L gets out the pair of handcuffs he’d brought for this purpose— _not again,_ he thinks, but it has proven necessary once more—and shackles Light to the radiator.

Gasping, Light looks at his hand, the cuff around his wrist, and then back at L. He cannot speak yet, and so L gets unsteadily to his feet while Light gasps, wipes the blood from under his nose, and goes to see if any of his hot chocolate survived the chaos. It did. He takes off the lid and blows on it before taking a sip.

“Thanks,” he says.

Light, red faced, his hair mussed and covering his eyes, looks up at him, apparently furious. He shakes his manacled hand so that the cuffs clang against the radiator. “What is this?” he manages to say at last.

L drinks more of his hot chocolate, then hunts around for a tissue for his still-bleeding nose. It isn’t broken, at least. “You,” he says to Light as he does this, “are Kira. And this time I know it for certain.”

Light pauses, then laughs, that half-hearted stuck-up laugh he does whenever L has him cornered but he doesn’t want to admit it. “This again? Didn’t the Death Note rules prove that Kira couldn’t be me?”

“That Death Note rule was faked.”

Light’s face pales abruptly, but he conceals the rest of his reaction quite well. “There’s no way you can prove that.”

“Not yet, at least,” L says. “But I don’t need to. And I can’t prove any of this, at this point. You’re right about that; you made sure to cover your tracks very well. I’m still figuring out the intricacies of it all.” He watches, a small part of him quietly amused, as Light looks smug about this. “But that doesn’t matter.” L leans in towards Light’s face and looks him directly in the eye. “I know that you are Kira. There is nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. And Rem and Misa have basically confirmed it to me.”

“Misa—!”

“—is gone,” L says smoothly. He reaches for his hot chocolate again. Light remembered the kind that he likes, sweet with a touch of hazelnut. L had told him this when they were working together to capture the Yotsuba executive acting as Kira. What does it mean that Light still remembers it? Nothing, nothing. “I thought that since Rem was—let’s say partial to Misa—that you would manipulate Rem to get her to kill me. I gave Rem a better offer. She and Misa are probably somewhere tropical right now. Though I don’t know whether shinigami particularly enjoy the beach.”

L pauses for a moment and seriously considers the logistics of this. Light stares at him, thunderstruck, his free hand still held up to his injured neck.

“H—how?” Light says at last. His hand tightens momentarily around his own neck, then falls to his lap, empty.

“A hunch,” L says. “That’s all. Sometimes that’s all you need.”

The color returns to Light’s face, with intensity. He refuses to look at L. This is behavior that L recognizes very well from—before. If nothing else, his time with Light hunting down Higuchi has made L very aware of Light’s tells, of which there are more than Light would probably like to think. All of which has been very helpful in nurturing L’s hunch. So perhaps Light outplayed him with regards to L ever being able to gather enough substantial evidence to convince anyone else of Kira’s true identity—but he also gave L exactly what L needed in order to be certain of that truth, as well. Likely Light never thought of it that way. Likely Light never thought that—without his memories, as he had been all those months—he would grow so close to L in such a short period of time.

Well—L had not exactly anticipated that, either.

“So,” Light says after a long time. “Now what?”

L looks him up and down. “Empty your pockets,” he says, “and unbutton your shirt.”

The look Light levels at him is completely contemptuous.

“I want to be sure you do not have any pages from the Death Note on you,” L says. “Now, do as I say....”

Light does, very slowly, proving to L that he does not have any pieces of paper anywhere on him, whether in his pockets, underneath his shirt, tucked into his socks, or shoved down his pants.

“Can I have my coffee?” he says after this. L finds the cup with the most amount of coffee still left in it and hands it to Light, who takes it with his free hand.

L’s gaze falls to Light’s watch on his wrist. “Take that off,” he says. Light raises one angry eyebrow, shakes his manacled hand, and glares at L.

“All right.” L reaches out to unclasp the watch himself. He holds it up to the light, inspecting it closely while Light watches him.

“It’s a watch,” Light says drily. “Last time I checked, Kira couldn’t kill anyone with a watch.”

“Mm.” L shakes the watch, listens to it, taps the crown, then performs the motion he has seen Light do a few times, but always brushed off as an idiosyncracy: twists the crown four times, quickly.

The top of the watch slides open. Inside is a single piece of ruled paper, exactly the same kind as that inside the Death Note.

L looks at Light and raises his eyebrows. Light sighs and takes an extremely put-upon sip of his coffee. “Surprise,” he says.

L tosses the watch back at him, still holding onto the scrap of notebook paper. Light, his one unshackled hand currently holding coffee, can’t catch the watch and it smacks him in the face instead. “Asshole,” Light grumbles while L takes the piece of paper over to the Death Note and flips to the page where he had noticed the tear earlier. He compares the two—and yes, they match up.

“Is this how you killed Higuchi?” L asks.

Light shrugs, says nothing, and takes another sip of coffee.

“Hmm.” L sets the piece of paper on top of the Death Note and stares down at it for a moment. The second Death Note is with Misa and Rem; this one is here, and all its pages—hopefully—are accounted for. L will have to check Light’s room, his parents house, anywhere else that he can think of, but he is fairly certain there will be nothing to find. Light had been sure that L was going to die soon; after that had happened, he would not need to be so careful with the Death Note anymore.

Light still looks a little flushed and breathless, but he has begun to regain control of himself. “Will you turn me in?”

“To who?” L asks. “If I bother, no doubt you’ll come up with a way to wriggle out of this. I hardly have much in the way of evidence. I’ve chosen not to record this conversation, even. All the cameras in the room are off.”

Light looks shocked. “Why?”

“Because,” L says, “I want you to give up ownership of the Death Note.”

Light stares at him. L continues, “Rem told me that it was possible. I believe her…she had no reason to lie to me at that point. Unlike you, who’ve apparently had reason to lie to me at every turn.” He frowns for a moment.

“Well, I’ll never do it,” Light says. “I’d rather die, at this point. So you should just do that instead. Try the Death Note out for yourself. Maybe you’ll like the way it feels.” He is smiling, his eyes glinting.

“No thank you,” L says politely. “I suppose it would have been hoping for too much to get you to agree to that.” He turns his back on Light, goes to his desk, and opens the middle drawer, from which he produces a matchbook.

Light is eyeing him warily, still holding his cup of coffee. “What are you doing?”

“Rem also told me about the second fake rule you had Ryuk write in the Death Note,” L says. He strikes a match and holds up the flame, looking at it intently for a moment.

“You can’t mean…Ryuzaki— _L_ —you can’t do this!” Light’s eyes have widened, and he looks, for the first time, actually scared.

“You’ll remember everything,” L says as the flame creeps down the match. “But you won’t have the power to kill indiscriminately anymore. And Kira will be defeated. It’s about the best I could have hoped for, given the circumstances.” He smiles. The flame has nearly reached his fingers, so he shakes the match so it goes out. Light visibly relaxes, but only until L lights a second match.

“Can’t stand burning my fingers,” L says, and he reaches out to touch the flame to the Death Note.

“No!”

Light lunges forward, but the handcuffs yank him back and all he accomplishes is spilling what little is left of his coffee down his shirt. He watches, wide-eyed, as the flame catches to the notebook, wavers for a moment, small and weak, and then suddenly expands, strengthens, and the notebook properly catches fire.

L stands there and watches it burn. The desk is fire-resistant, so he leaves the Death Note where it is while the flames eat away at it, though he pushes the monitors back. The notebook takes a long time to burn—but perhaps L has just never really known how long fire takes to truly destroy something, and this is not attributable to the strange powers of the Death Note itself.

Light watches the fire, speechless, his mouth partially open, his once more empty hand shaking slightly. After what feels like a long time, the fire burns itself out, and there is nothing left of the Death Note but ashes.

L—using a small brush and dustpan, as the ashes are still warm—sweeps the remains into a small metal garbage can, sets it aside, brushes his hands off on his t-shirt, and turns to look at Light properly. All the color has drained from Light’s face. His hands are no longer shaking but are closed in on themselves, clenched. After a long time, he looks away from the garbage can and meets L’s gaze. His hands slowly relax, and his tongue wets the corner of his mouth.

“So,” L says, and allows himself a small smile. “I win.”

Light’s nostrils flare, but he seems incapable of saying anything. L goes over and unlocks the handcuffs, and Light grips his released wrist with his other hand, looking up at L with something sort of like resentment and something very much like fury in his eyes.

“A little soon to let me go, isn’t it?” he asks quietly. “I’m quite furious with you, if you can’t tell.”

L shrugs. “I considered that you might try to kill me after I did this. But you killed with the Death Note because it was easy and impartial. God-like....Killing me with your hands would be entirely too human for you.”

Light snarls and leaps to his feet. L does not resist when Light shoves him against the wall, hard, and presses his forearm against L’s throat. “Maybe I’m angry enough to do it anyway,” Light says through his teeth. “And you won’t be around to enjoy your victory much longer.”

“Maybe,” L says. The pressure against his throat increases. In response, L simply presses his hand against Light’s crotch, where he can clearly feel Light’s very obvious erection.

Light hisses out a breath and pushes himself away from L. “This is what you gambled everything on?” he asks. He glances at the garbage can once more. “A biological reaction?”

“And maybe a neurochemical one.”

“It means _nothing,”_ Light says. “And neither does anything you think might matter from when I did not remember that I was Kira.”

“All right,” L says. It is true that Light having a hard-on right now does not necessarily indicate anything other than the fact that he has a hard-on—but all the other things that L has been noticing, when combined with that, certainly suggest something more than a merely biological reaction. But L, now faced with this moment—Light unmasked, the Death Note destroyed, and Light ultimately powerless to ever kill again—finds himself completely uncertain as to what to do. Untangling his own emotions has always been far more difficult than investigating someone else’s.

What does L want? He wants the time to figure out what he wants. That much, at least, he will now get to have. What’s going to happen with him and Light, what they are going to have to come up with to tell the others on the task force about what happened to Kira—with time, he will be able to figure all of that out. He has always been able to figure anything out in the end. Given enough time.

“You are _infuriating,”_ Light says. “Do you know that? I loathe you.”

L almost laughs but stops himself because he does not know how Light would react to that right now. “From the moment you were born, has there ever been a point in your life when you’ve told the truth?” He smiles instead, a smile that says, _I know the answer to that, and I know that I’ve won, and so do you._

Light growls and lunges at L again, shoving him back against the wall. But this time, his hands are hot on L’s hips, his chest, pushing against L’s t-shirt and the waistband of his jeans and then against skin. Light kisses L furiously, fiercely, already gasping for breath, and simply hums something incomprehensible when L puts his arms around Light’s shoulders.

“I won,” L says against Light’s mouth.

 _“Don’t,”_ Light says, grinding his erection against L’s thigh, “fucking remind me.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
